


Shifted

by arianapeterson19



Series: Avengers Shorts [16]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Avengers Family, Kidnapping, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Protective Avengers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-06 19:59:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5428832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arianapeterson19/pseuds/arianapeterson19
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where shapeshifters are a thing - thought not super common - the Avengers are kidnapped for their talents.</p><p>OR</p><p>The one where the everyone can become an animal at will (but Tony really doesn't like it)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shifters

Shifters were rare and tended towards pack dynamics, banding together to stay safe. The Avengers were no different. Phil Coulson was all human, essentially their handler, but the others were not. Clint became a huge golden eagle the size of the baby elephant, talons like knives and wings spanning almost twelve feet. Bruce turned into the Hulk. Bucky became a huge grey wolf, Steve an oversized grizzly bear, and Natasha became an elegant polar bear. No one knew what Tony was because the genius refused to shift. He never explained why he was so against shifting but they all knew it was because of his past. At some point someone had caused enough damage to scare him into being human always. A lot of speculation went in to what Tony was in animal form but it wasn’t until they were all captured and forced into their shifted forms that anyone saw.

Compared to everyone else, Tony was tiny. Backed into the corner of the cell, staring with wide eyes, he looked downright adorable. His pale yellow fur with small black spots puffed out to make him appear him appear larger than he was and even then he was only marginally bigger than a house cat.

“Tony, calm down,” ordered Steve, grateful that shifters understood each other in animal form. “We aren’t going to hurt you.”

Tony hissed at him and backed even further up, his striped tail flicking back and forth in irritation and fear.

Bucky – true to his ‘act now, question later’ form – walked up while Tony was focused on Steve and dragged Tony out of the corner by the scruff of his neck.

“Thank goodness you’re not a fish,” said Clint. “Natasha, you owe me fifty bucks.”

Oddly enough that comment seemed to relax Tony for some reason. Perhaps it was Clint totally accepting who Tony was or the way that everyone else was in their animal forms. He had been around the others while they were in their animal forms, they never pressured him into shifting and now that he was forced into it, they seemed strangely accommodating. Or maybe it was that fact that he was significantly smaller than all of them.

“What type of cat are you?” asked Steve, circling around to guard the door while Bucky curled around Tony, forcing him to stay put.

“I’m a serval cat,” snapped Tony, large ears flicking.

“That makes so much sense!” said Clint, flapping his wings in excitement. “Serval’s are both wild and tame! That’s awesome!”

Tony grumbled but flinched violently when the door slammed open, cowering into Bucky’s side. The other Avengers tensed, eying the threat while forming a protective circle around Bucky and Tony.

“All so big and fierce,” commented their captor. “Well, except Stark, he’s just a cat.”

Steve growled, though it was no use – humans couldn’t understand shifters in their animal forms. A tranculizer was fired through the door, swiftly followed by others that found their marks, putting all but Tony down for the count.

“Now Stark,” said the man, lifting up a frozen Tony by the scruff of his neck. “Let’s have some fun.”


	2. Warmth

When he was young Tony loved being a shifter. It was fun for him, comfortable, but his father disapproved. Howard was forever warning Tony about the evils that would take him for being a Stark, a genius, a shifter. It only took two kidnappings for Tony to understand how real the threats were. He stopped shifting around people because while he couldn’t stop them from knowing what he was, he could prevent them from finding out what he became.

The man had already strapped Tony’s neck down in a metal clamp which chafed because Tony refused to sit still. The man had been poking and prodding and invading Tony’s personal space for the better part of three hours. After being on the receiving end of Tony’s claws multiple times, the man had finally learned and strapped his front paws down tightly. This caused Tony enough distress that he drew blood within minutes trying to yank free.

“Relax, cat,” drawled the man, his greasy blonde hair starting to fall out of place. “I’m done. I’ll return you to your friends to wait and see who the highest bidder is. That’s right, a pretty little cat like you can draw a lot of money in the right market.”

With that the man unclasped Tony’s paws and neck and forced the billionaire into a sturdy sack to protect against flailing claws. And Tony did flail. Being stuck in a bag that smelled like death and a college frat party was not his idea of fun and he fought the containment until the bag hit the ground painfully, causing him to roll out. Before he could react properly, he found himself under one of Clint’s oversized wings, the others glaring at the locked door, blocking Tony from view. It was only after the door had been shut for seven minutes that anyone relaxed.

Tony cringed when he put weight on his bleeding front paws.

“What does he want?” asked Natasha, getting right to the point.

“He’s a fucking black market trader,” growled Tony, curling into a shivering ball to lick his wounds without having to put any extra weight on his limbs. “He wants to sell us. Or at least, he wants to sell me. I don’t think wolves or bears go for very much – too expensive to feed and too hard to control.”

“Have they met you?” demanded Clint. “They really think you’re going to be easy to control?”

“I’m tiny and adorable,” said Tony smugly, not at all as comfortable with being so vulnerable as he was letting on. “Of course they think that.”

“How much longer until the drug is done and we can shift back?” asked Natasha.

“Bucky and I can probably shift back in a few hours,” admitted Steve. “We figured it out about two minutes before they brought Tony back – the serum moves things along pretty fast. We just need a plan.”

“They have like three guards,” reported Tony. “Those guards have those nasty little blow guns that shoot the shitty sleep stuff – you know the ones that wear off almost immediately. If we get the door open then it shouldn’t be too hard to fight our way out. The only problem is we have no idea where the hell here is.”  
There was no way of knowing where they were. They had all been out during the transport and didn’t even know how long they had been gone.

“Let me see those wrists,” said Steve eventually.

“No, with your paws you’re more likely to rip them off than actually help,” snapped Tony, shivering again.

“You might have caused yourself real damage,” reasoned Steve, his fur rustling in irritation. “Just let me look, Stark.”

“No!”

Steve let out a fierce growl of frustration which sounded more like a roar than a growl send Tony skittering under Bucky’s belly for protection since there were no other places to hide.

“Steve, get ahold of yourself,” growled Bucky, glaring at his best friend with reproach. “Honestly, you’re like a million pounds bigger than Tony right now, you could squish him with one paw and you think growling is going to make you get your way?”

Steve had the good grace to look sheepish but he didn’t apologize and Tony didn’t come out from his hiding spot.

“Steve, go make a plan with Natasha,” ordered Bucky, pointing at the far corner with his nose, leaving no room for argument.

Steve and Natasha ambled over to the corner, which wasn’t far with their size but gave Tony some semblance of privacy. Bucky carefully laid down, making sure to keep Tony cocooned in warmth when he noticed the beginning stages of shock setting in to the billionaires glassy eyes. Tony glared at him.

“I don’t need your protection,” snapped Tony, ears flicking in irritation.

“I didn’t say you did,” replied Bucky mildly, having enough experience with Steve to no longer rise to such retorts. “I am merely settling down for a nap since we clearly aren’t going anywhere soon.”

Tony eyed him suspiciously but he body was betraying him, leaning into the warmth of Bucky’s thick grey fur, eyes starting to close on their own in response to the stressful day he’d had thus far. Clint said something about taking the first watch but at that point Tony was mostly asleep. Then Steve and Natasha joined their pile – Tony knew because of their distinctive scents- and the warmth and surprising security was enough to send him to sleep, making him forget his throbbing neck and aching paws and the threat of being sold for a time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this story will be over next chapter. That's my plan, anyway. I may write more little one shots of it if people request. We shall see.
> 
> Always,  
> Ari


	3. Lifted

“Pst!” hissed Clint, poking Tony’s side. “Tony! Tony! Tony!”

“Go away, Clint,” grumbled Tony, curling more into himself to escape the prodding of the archer.

“No, we really need to get moving,” said Clint. “They guards are fighting. I think Coulson’s here so unless you want to have him find us all sleeping then you need to get up.”

Tony’s eyes shot open and the first thing he registered was the mass of fur keeping him warm. The next was that he was still in his shifted form, as were the others, and his paws ached in a way that just screamed of not being able to support him if he tried to stand.

“Come on,” said Bucky, eying Tony critically before making an executive discision. “On my back, it’ll be faster.”

Tony flicked his ears at the wolf and shuffled away, hissing at the amount of pain radiating from his paws and neck. Clint was jumping around the room restlessly, his wings creating gusts of air, sending dust into the air. Steve and Natasha were guarding the door, their massive forms nearly blocking the entire wall.

“Stop being a baby,” said Bucky, easily climbing to his feet and shaking out his grey fur, for a moment looking more like a dog than a wolf, his tongue lolling in satisfaction. “Come on, just climb on, you can’t run on those paws.”

Before Tony could respond the door burst open, revealing Coulson and several agents.

“Play time’s over,” announced Coulson mildly. “Let’s get going.”

Before he could turn, Bucky let out a whine. Coulson came over to inspect the wolf but Bucky stepped to the side and nudged Tony with his nose lightly. Coulson took in the blood, light around Tony’s neck and thicker around his front paws, before picking up the serval and following Steve and Natasha out the door. Tony hated it but he burrowed into the agent’s jacket, away from the constant noise of gunfire and animal roars. Coulson, for his part, took it in stride, adjusting his grip so that Tony was mostly covered in his jacket, and followed the Avengers closely, letting them take out any guards they came across, hoping that helped get their aggression out properly.

When they arrived in the jet, one of the agents got into the pilots seat and started their getaway while the others strapped in. Steve, Natasha, Clint, Bucky, and Coulson all went to the opposite side, a wall coming up to give them some privacy. Bruce was waiting for them in his human form; no one wanted to kidnap the Hulk unless they had a death wish. Coulson set Tony into Bruce’s lap.

“Hey Tony,” said Bruce softly, holding the serval when Tony tried to escape. “None of that nonsense, I need to check you. You’re bleeding.”

Tony hissed his displeasure but he knew he was being unreasonable. Besides, Bucky was sitting in front of them, his eyes trained on Bruce as if daring the doctor to do something he didn’t approve of. It made the genius feel marginally better and didn’t seem to faze Bruce. Swiftly Bruce cleaned the wounds, deciding the one around his neck was fine but wrapped the ones on his paws with a thick amount of gauze, not wanting to risk stiches in the jet. When he was done, he surrendered the serval to Bucky, who took Tony by the scruff of his neck and pranced over to the corner.

“I’m done being small,” declared Tony, ears twitching. “I want to shift back now. Why aren’t you shifted? You could totally shift by now with that serum.”

“Yeah well, I like being a wolf,” said Bucky, not denying that he could shift back now if he wanted. He could feel it in his mind, the block was removed, but Bucky refused to shift back when Tony was so uncomfortable. “Easier to sleep.”

“So what, you shift every night to sleep?”

“Pretty much,” said Bucky.

“Most of us do, actually,” said Clint. “It’s comfortable.”

Tony looked on in disbelief because no one could possibly be that comfortable in their shifted form to want to sleep in it. But then again, maybe it was possible for them because they were all big.

“We also share a room when we sleep if we’ve shifted,” said Natasha. “It’s safer.”

“Taking the whole pack dynamics a bit seriously, aren’t you?” sneered Tony. “I mean, you may shift into animals but there’s no reason to act like them. You’re humans.”

“No, we’re shifters,” said Steve. “You don’t have to fight what you are anymore.”

“Easy for you to say,” snapped Tony, glaring at the grizzly bear. “You didn’t have it beaten into you that shifting was an abomination. I’m fairly certain the only reason my father didn’t sell me off himself was because I was his only hope as an heir. You didn’t get kidnapped and have to fight your way out every time just so you wouldn’t get sold. You guys turn into fucking huge animals who no one wants to have because you’ll eat them! I turn into a fucking cat!”

“If it helps, you’re an adorable fucking cat,” said Clint with a smirk. 

“No one here is going to let anyone sell you,” said Steve. 

“That’s what they were planning on doing today!”

“Do you really think we would let them take you? And even if by some miracle they did manage to take you then you better believe that nothing would stop us from getting you back.”

“You don’t mean that,” said Tony softly. “Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep.”

“Then why don’t you stick around and let us show you,” suggested Natasha. “Starting now. We have a few more hours before we land, why don’t you get some rest and let us take the watch?”

“We’re on a SHEILD jet,” said Tony.

“And we all know that none of us trust SHEILD more than we have to,” replied Natasha. “You rest, we protect and then when you wake up you can take a shift.”

Perhaps it was the offer to keep watch but more than likely it was the plan that he would get to take a turn – be useful – that convinced Tony to agree. Either way, everyone breathed a sigh of relief when Tony settled down for the flight.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I just really wanted to make everyone their own animal.


End file.
